Over at Military.com there's an article on preparing to be a Navy Seal which begins thusly:
That 'severest school' thing is puzzling to me ... as might be expected, it also appears on a Marine Corps site ... as might not be expected, it also appears on a Cold Fusion training site ...one site gives a ref as 1.1.85, but that doesn't seem to match up with anything that can be interpreted in this way. But eureka! It turns out to be 1.84.1 ... a speech put in the mouth of Archidamus! Morris' commentary at Perseus is helpful here in getting the sense of this form of anankaios ...
More than 2,500 years ago, Athenian General Thucydides said, "We must remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school."
As I've said countless times, had Thucydides lived in the 21st Century, he almost certainly would have agreed that one of the world's "severest schools" is the six-months of absolute hell endured by young Navy SEAL candidates hoping to win -- after an equally tough post-training period with "the Teams" -- the coveted "trident" badge: symbol of the SEALs.
That 'severest school' thing is puzzling to me ... as might be expected, it also appears on a Marine Corps site ... as might not be expected, it also appears on a Cold Fusion training site ...one site gives a ref as 1.1.85, but that doesn't seem to match up with anything that can be interpreted in this way. But eureka! It turns out to be 1.84.1 ... a speech put in the mouth of Archidamus! Morris' commentary at Perseus is helpful here in getting the sense of this form of anankaios ...